School of Communication SSTORY TORY SSPOTLIGHT POTLIGHT Ph.D. Student Amy Huber Harnesses Her Architectural Background to Support Marginalized Populations

Amy Huber received the AEJMC Collaborative Scholar grant this year to further her research on the communication aspects of the built environment in primary care facilities. Huber is a decorated project designer who is pursuing her Ph.D. at the School of Communication. Her research surrounds the area of interpersonal and interpretative communication methods and their effects on design processes. “I noticed a troubling pattern when teaching our healthcare design studio. My students from underrepresented backgrounds expressed more anxiety about attending our site visits to healthcare spaces and addressing their own healthcare needs. While I knew these anxieties were grounded in generational and systemic issues, I wanted to harness my architectural background to explore the messages sent by healthcare environments to marginalized populations.”